


In the Silence

by aquietpersonwithaloudmind



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Cass is sad, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mor can't believe Nesta has feelings, Nesta will protect him, a lil bit of sin at the end bc who can blame me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 15:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8214952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquietpersonwithaloudmind/pseuds/aquietpersonwithaloudmind
Summary: Cassian's been gone for a week on a mission no one will tell her anything about. When he comes back, covered in blood that is not his own, Nesta tries to heal that haunted look in his eyes. He returns midafternoon by flying through a window, stumbling as he lands, covered in blood.    Nesta rushes towards him, ready to demand answers and explanations but as she gets close enough to see his face she realizes she’s never seen him so… tired. Sad. And when she gets closer to touch him, to talk, she just asks, “Bath?”    He nods, and Nesta thinks he is silent, so silent, too silent. Mother, what happened to him?





	

Nesta is waiting in one of the comfy alcoves in the House of Wind for Cassian to come home.

It’s rare that she has to wait for him at all, really. Normally, she’s right there with him, commanding troops or helping with battle plans.

But today, Cassian went alone, to do something he refused to discuss with her. No matter how much she bothered or bet or promised or cajoled, he refused to take her with him. And when she’d finally went to the one giving the orders to demand Rhys himself let her go, the High Lord refused both her original request and her second one, to know what exactly they are doing that she can’t know of.

And so Nesta is left to wait.

Feyre and Mor and Elain and even Amren do their best to keep her from blasting the house into nothingness due to frustration. Azriel and Rhys remain in Velaris physically, though mentally there is a distance, a brooding that neither Mor nor Feyre can breach.

But Cassian is supposed to be back today, and Nesta is waiting.

He returns midafternoon by flying through a window, stumbling as he lands, covered in blood.

Nesta rushes towards him, ready to demand answers and explanations but as she gets close enough to see his face she realizes she’s never seen him so… tired. _Sad._ And when she gets closer to touch him, to talk, she just asks, “Bath?”

He nods, and Nesta thinks he is silent, so silent, _too_ silent. _Mother,_ what happened to him?

She takes him by the hand and leads him gently into their shared chambers to the bathroom and the tub big enough for the two of them and a pair of Illyrian wings.

It’s another moment of his staring blankly at the water, eyes miles away, before Nesta helps him out of the bloodstained leathers. She leaves them in a pile on the floor and then steps out of her own clothes, sliding into the warm water naked. He follows suit with a tug on the hand. They sit together on the built-in bench. He watches the swirling water. She watches him.    

There is blood on his face, she notices, streaked like tears. Even on his chest, where the leathers should have kept him clean, there is a maroon tint. There was so much blood on him, it soaked through.

She knows, based on his lack of wounds, it’s not from him. She’s not sure if it would be better if it was. Who did Rhys send him to massacre? What battle did he face, where did he travel in order to be gone a week without contact?

She picks up a bar of soap and begins gently working to clean his skin, his face, his hair. He doesn’t look at her once, even when she’s trying to make eye contact; even when she spends several minutes looking at his face as she wipes away those blood tears. She expects him to move even just the smallest amount when she lathers up his hair—every other time she’s touched it, he leans in like a cat, sometimes even making a sort of purring noise deep in his throat. But he doesn’t move.

It is only after she has washed everything else that she asks quietly, “do you want me to do your wings, too?”

And finally, _finally,_ he allowed their eyes to meet. She held her breath, waiting for him to speak, but he only nodded silently before turning away to once more look at nothing.

She lets out a breath and begins washing his wings. He shivers subconsciously at every touch despite how efficiently gentle she’s trying to make it. She knows from experience how easily it can be taken differently. The tremors are her only proof he’s feeling at all.

And when his wings are clean, and the only indication of the horrors of this past week are the still-bloodied leathers on the floor and the haunted look in his eyes, Nesta sits beside him, once again. This time, when she tries for it, he meets her eyes. She can tell, through the mating bond or just through the years spent together, that he’s not ready to talk.

So she instead pulls him close, his head tucked in the crook between her shoulder and her neck, his weight resting entirely on hers. And they sit like that, out of spacetime, while the warm water and her hands try to wash away what the soap could not.

* * *

It’s time for dinner, but Nesta and Cassian are not at the table.

Mor knows Cassian returned today, because Rhys and Azriel have finally stopped most of their brooding. And with Nesta being as concerned for him as she had been this past week, Mor wouldn’t have been surprised if they were greeting each other as mates did. Generally, Mor would’ve stayed as far away from that as possible. But this was the first time they had been together for a week, and fucking did not take precedence over family dinners.

Sometimes, Mor thought as she climbed the stairs to Cassian’s and Nesta’s room, she was sad Azriel was only her husband and not her mate. But then there were times that she was glad to _not_ be mated, purely because it kept her from making a hormonal fool of herself.

To Mor’s surprise, their room was quiet. Silent, in fact. Either they were resting after their activities, or they were doing something she didn’t want to imagine. She knocked on the door anyway.

“C’mon, you guys. Dinner’s ready, and you’re not allowed to skip it.”

There was no answer. Mor knocked again, and said a little louder, “I know you guys are in there.”

She heard a faint voice say, “come in,” and so tentatively she entered.

The bedroom was empty, the sheets neatly tucked in.

“We’re back here,” the voice called again. Mor followed it into the bathroom, and stopped suddenly at what she saw.

Both Nesta and Cassian were in the bathtub. And Nesta was holding him, his head between her neck and her shoulder, his wings floating on top of the water.

Mor had never seen her look so… _caring._

“What did you need?” Nesta asked quietly. That voice had been _her_ voice, but Mor had been unable to recognize it in this form, its lack of spitfire, its calmness.

“Dinner’s ready.” Cassian didn’t move at the mention of food, and Mor realized it was because he was asleep.

Nesta pushed gently on Cassian’s shoulder. “Cassian, love? Dinner or sleep?”

He muttered something unintelligible and buried his face deeper in the crook of Nesta’s neck.

Nesta looked back at Mor, whose ears were still ringing with the pet name “love.”

“Save our plates?” Nesta asked. Mor nodded and wandered out, closing the doors behind her. The entire time Mor had known Nesta, she’d never really believed she cared for Cassian, not in the way Mor believed he deserved. She had thought, even after a mating bond and a marriage, that Nesta was only with Cassian for the sex, or the power, or to further cement her place within her sister’s court. It had taken years for Mor to realize how much Nesta loved him.

Well, Mor supposed as she headed back down the stairs, perhaps she owed Nesta an apology.

* * *

It was a little while after Mor had left that Cassian woke up, blinking sleep out of still-tired hazel eyes as he looked up at Nesta.

Nesta smiled down at him, continuing to stroke his hair.

“Feel better?” She asked, and he pressed a kiss to her shoulder in answer.

They were silent for a moment before she cautiously asked, “do you want to talk about it?”

He hesitated, eyes darkening once more. “Rhys wouldn’t want me to.”

“Then we won’t tell him you did.”

“We won’t need to tell him; you’ll go marching off to beat him up.”

It was a few moments after their small smiles faded that Nesta said, “please tell me.”

Cassian shook his head. “I don’t want to have to relive it.”

She made a little humming noise in understanding. After another silent moment, she said, “Mor came up a little bit ago to say dinner was ready. We may still be able to join them. Or we could stay in here or move to the bed if you want to sleep more.”

He was silent, turning over his options. Then he said “I had to kill all the Illyrian bastards.”

She was shocked into her own silence.

“Even though bastards are unwanted,” he continued, his eyes far away, “the camp lords use their loneliness and anger and resentment to shape them into warriors who serve only them. A coalition of the lords was planning on getting all those who were loyal to them together and trying to stage a revolt. Rhys sent me to put all the bastards down, both at the guilty camps and not. Trained or not. Boys or men. Every one of them. Every single camp.” _A camp like mine. A bastard boy like me._

Oh, _Mother—_ “Rhys could have done it, _should have_ done it. He shouldn’t have put that on you.”

“No,” he said. “It had to be me. They needed to see that we were strong enough, that I was a strong enough Illyrian to be their commander and Rhys was a strong enough leader that my loyalty to him was so unshakeable I would kill my own.” His voice grew almost too low to hear. “I was the one who told Rhys about the problem, about their plans. I knew what was going to happen when I did.”

“Oh, love,” Nesta said quietly, bringing him against her once again, and she knew the warm wetness she felt on her skin wasn’t bathwater.

She had no words to say, no action to take in order to right this, to make it better or easier. It had to be done. He had been the only one to do it. And there was no changing that.

So she held him as he cried, took away as much of his burden as she could bear, until neither of them could stand straight-backed, but neither of them would be crushed.  

* * *

When Nesta and Cassian didn’t show up for dinner the next night, Mor grumbled as she once again climbed the steps to their room. The two of them were adults. They should be able to keep track of time.

There was noise coming from behind the door when she made it up there, talking and giggling and growling. Nothing _too_ suggestive, thank Mother.

Mor pounded on the door. “Let’s go, you two. Dinner!”

When the noises didn’t stop or change, she muttered something to herself and threw the door open.

The bed was a mess, and they were both obviously naked, but at least the covers obscured the parts she didn’t want to see. They both turned to look at her, faces flushed and eyes sparkling. “Dinner’s ready,” Mor repeated.

Nesta looked at her mate. “Dinner?” she asked him, but there was teasing instead of caring in her voice tonight.

“Hm,” Cassian said, pretending to think about it. “You know, I think we both already ate.”

Nesta shrieked in laughter as he pulled her to him, going back for seconds.

“Disgusting,” Mor grumbled as she slammed the door and started back downstairs. But for all her complaining, she couldn’t help but feel relieved. 

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to [fey-sand](fey-sand.tumblr.com) for betaing this. Thanks, friend. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this fic! I'm open to requests if you have them, but either way, feel free to come talk to me on my [tumblr.](cass-ian.tumblr.com/tagged/my%20fic)


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